From Forest to Fuel: Lessons from the Pacific Northwest Forest Tour with Yale
For the first time, the Yale School of the Environment brought their annual, international Forest Dialogue field tour to the United States—and they asked Sustainable Northwest to organize.
We didn’t disappoint. And neither did they.
The Forests Dialogue provides a platform for ongoing, multi-stakeholder conversations focused on collaborative solutions to challenges in achieving sustainable forest management and forest conservation. Yale has led these dialogues at locations throughout the world for 25 years.
Map courtesy of Yale School of the Environment/The Forests Dialogue
With participants from across the world, the tour focused on bioenergy from forests. We followed a route from rainy westside forests to fire-prone landscapes east of the Cascades, offering a rare and holistic look at the full forest product cycle: fire and fuels, forest management, forest products, workforce development, and the evolving role of bioenergy in forest health and rural economies.
Since 2000, this international tour series has brought decision-makers to regions across the U.S. to see forest management and wood utilization up close. This year’s tour was unique for its focus on the full value chain, from forest restoration to product strategy. Participants left with a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the PNW’s forest sector, especially when it comes to revitalizing infrastructure and rethinking the role of wood products “waste” – including bark, chips, and sawdust.
West Side: Coastal Forests, Byproducts, and Shifting Perspectives
In the southwest corner of Washington, the group toured forestlands and mills at the heart of the timber industry. The region is home to legacy infrastructure: four to five active mills, two pulp plants, and the historic export log industry centered around Weyerhaeuser. At the Forest Learning Center and nearby sites, participants got a glimpse of how saw-logs become wood products—and what happens to what’s left over.
The conversation turned quickly to mill and forest residuals. The pulp industry that once consumed these byproducts has largely left the Northwest, migrating to the Southeast U.S. That shift has left landowners and mills with limited outlets for materials that are often called “waste.” But as one Weyerhaeuser representative emphasized, that label is part of the problem: “We’ve got to stop calling it waste. This stuff has value—it’s just undervalued.”
This framing—residuals as a resource, not a liability—set the tone for the rest of the tour.
At Port Blakely’s Winston Creek site, the group explored how a Safe Harbor Agreement has enabled habitat protection for the northern spotted owl alongside carbon offsets, mass timber, and sustainable harvest. Yet biomass, the fuel potential of forest and mill residuals, still doesn’t qualify under the Renewable Fuel Standard—a federal program in the United States that mandates the blending of renewable fuels into transportation fuel —highlighting a major policy disconnect that stifles innovation.
Participants were honored to be welcomed to the region by representatives from the Chinook Indian Nation, who shared their ancestral ties to the land. The Chinook Indian Nation is not federally recognized and has been fighting for this right for over 120 years.
East Side: Fire, Restoration, and the Cost of Doing Nothing
Crossing the Cascade crest, the tour entered fire country—or rather, forests that thrive with frequent, low-intensity fire. The group visited the scar of a recent wildfire on Washington state land. Here, state and federal managers had invested in proactive treatments—prescribed fire, selective thinning, and fuels reduction—at a net cost of around $200 per acre. When the wildfire hit, those treated areas fared much better. More trees survived, damage was less severe, and some of the burned wood was later salvaged for lumber.
These treatments required public dollars because there is currently no viable market for residual materials, such as pulp, in the area. If a market for these byproducts existed, it’s likely the project would not have needed subsidies. Biomass utilization could be a key solution for making treatments like this pay for themselves and reducing reliance on public funding.
The takeaway? Proactive investment pays off. “If you put the money on the ground, it works,” said Sustainable Northwest’s Tribal Partners and Resource Stewardship Manager Steve Rigdon. “It’s subsidized, yes—but nowhere near the cost of fire suppression, which can run $1,000 an acre or more.”
Further east, the tour visited Yakama Forest Products and the surrounding tribal forestlands. Infrastructure like hog fuel boilers—used to generate energy from debarked wood—are underutilized, and efforts to maintain or modernize them face headwinds. Still, the Yakama Nation continues to lead by example with forest stewardship in places like Simon Butte, keeping tribal lands healthy and forest economies active.
Workforce Woes: A Critical Piece of the Puzzle
Throughout the tour, one recurring theme emerged: even when markets, infrastructure, and policies align, a limited and shrinking workforce threatens the future of the forest sector. Mill operators, forest contractors, and tribal forestry leaders alike shared the same concern—there simply aren’t enough trained workers to meet current or future needs.
Years of underinvestment in vocational training and generational shifts away from forest-based careers have left many communities without the workforce needed to implement fuels reduction, operate biomass facilities, or run mills efficiently. This shortage slows down restoration, weakens supply chains, and reduces economic opportunities in rural areas.
Participants heard about promising efforts to build new pipelines for forest careers—from apprenticeship programs to tribal workforce development—but the scale of the challenge remains large. If the Pacific Northwest is to seize the full potential of its forest resources, it must also invest in the people who make that work possible.
Main Takeaways
Forest and mill residuals are undervalued, not waste. Revitalizing the use of these materials—especially for energy—could help address both wildfire risk and economic challenges in rural communities.
Proactive forest restoration works. Treatments like prescribed fire and commercial thinning reduce fire severity and save money in the long run.
We need to close the policy gaps. Biomass is not yet recognized under key standards like the Renewable Fuel Standard, limiting its potential as a renewable energy source.
Infrastructure matters. From mills to pellet plants to boilers, the physical systems that connect forests to markets are essential—and aging fast.
People matter. We must invest in workforce training and development if we hope to have both healthy forests and thriving rural economies.
Tribes are leading. From welcoming the tour on ancestral lands to demonstrating innovation in forest management and energy, Tribal Nations are at the forefront of sustainable solutions.
The Pacific Northwest is rich in forest resources, innovation, and leadership. But without renewed investment in infrastructure, workforce, and smart policy, much of its potential will remain untapped. Tours like this one remind us that the answers are out there—we just have to see them for ourselves.
Thank you to Sustainable Northwest rockstars Steve Rigdon, Greg Houle, and Jeremy Kwok Choon for making this tour a success.
